According to the article "Arctic Meltdown" by Justin Gillis, ice currently covers about 24% of the arctic ocean. In 1970 it covered 50%. " The Arctic is Earth's air conditioner," says Walt Meier, research scientist at National Snow and Ice Data Center. " We're losing that." Without the Arctic to keep our earth cool, the ice in the Arctic will melt. The ramifications of this have and will be the gradual extinction of polar bears, local tribes being forced to move and adapt, and according to Justin Gillis, the rising of our sea levels.
How Justin Gillis wants the readers of his article to feel is intimidated. He tells the audience strong and terrifying facts about the arctic, hoping to scare them into taking action. By saying that the results of arctic meltdown will be like a stronger version of Hurricane Sandy, he connects to the reader's personal experience with flooding; he makes them see that this is not an imaginary problem. He continues to throw shocking facts at the reader throughout the article, hoping to make them realize the horrible situation we are in.
I believe that this article is very strong and very helpful. Justin Gillis has found a way of stating facts that people might not want to think about in a very clear and straightforward way. Where other people might not approve of scaring your audience into agreeing with you, I think it was very effective on me, and hope it will be on other readers of "Upfront Magazine". I believe that we should be doing whatever we can to prevent sea levels from rising. As stated in the article, the reason people aren't doing anything to stop these issues is because they haven't seen any bad effects of the melting in the arctic. Well soon enough they will be seeing those bad effects, and I think that Justin Gillis got that across very well in his article.
Please leave a comment :)
Here's the article: http://home.d47.org/jgwalsh/files/2012/01/Arctic-Meltdown.pdf
Gillis, Justin. "Arctic Meltdown." Upfront 19 Nov. 2012: 8-11.
That is a startling stat. I may want to read it. I think it's a big issue with global warning and everything. I agree with you on the fact that there will be bad effects to the environment if we keep polluting like we are doing right now. Poor polar bears and it motivates me to take action.
ReplyDeleteNice post, Ellie!
ReplyDeleteIt seems that people hear a lot of facts about sea levels rising but don't really do anything! However, from what you've written it seems that that article states the facts in a forceful way that makes the reader care and want to help. There are lots of articles on global warming and lots of environmental catastrophes but most of them aren't very effective. Like you said, the strong articles are the ones that have an effect. The authors have to hit the reader in the face with reality and really make them understand just how bad it is.
Wow, thats really scary! Sadly, I don't believe people will start to care, because frankly, they don't think that stuff matters. They don't realize that this is a life and death situation.
ReplyDelete